This invention relates to an apparatus for blowing cooled air into an occupant compartment of a vehicle, and more particularly to an evaporative cooling apparatus for blowing cooled air into the occupant compartment of a golf cart.
Evaporative cooling systems provide inexpensive and environmentally sound methods for providing cooled air to passenger compartment of vehicles. Evaporative coolers have been used to cool a variety of types of passenger compartment. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,261,930 discloses an evaporative cooler which may be mounted atop the personnel cab of an agricultural machine. U.S. Pat. No. 3,583,174 discloses an evaporative cooler which may be mounted atop a vehicle cab and U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,060 discloses a portable evaporative cooler for use in a motor vehicle, travel trailer or other movable structures. Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,982 discloses an evaporative cooler for use atop a bus.
Each of the aforementioned evaporative coolers will leak or spill water upon an incline or descent, and therefore are not useful for a vehicle which is being driven on non-horizontal or uneven terrain. This leakage or spillage occurs because the filter which is saturated with water and through which the air flows through must be unenclosed in order to allow for the evaporative cooling effect. In saturating the filter, excess water will necessarily accumulate and will need to be channeled to a reserve tank. It is usually when the excess water is being channeled that leakage or spillage occurs as the vehicle ascends or descends. Golf carts are vehicles which frequently travel on uneven terrain and therefore, the aforementioned evaporative coolers would not function properly under the driving circumstances of golf carts.
It is an object of this invention to provide an evaporative cooler which can be used as an air cooler for the passenger compartment of a vehicle which typically travels on non-horizontal terrain, such as golf carts, as well as a cooler for all types of vehicles.
The passenger compartments of golf carts are generally designed to seat two passengers and therefore, the roofs of golf carts are generally designed to cover two people. Accordingly, an evaporative cooler for golf cart passenger compartments must be horizontally compact enough to be housed on a golf cart's roof. Moreover, many golfers live in houses which border golf courses and therefore those golfers may park their golf carts in their garages. Accordingly, an evaporative cooler must be vertically compact enough to pass through a standard height garage door. Furthermore, because there is limited space on a golf cart roof or otherwise on the golf cart, the system must be self contained, that is, it must occupy very little space while being able to contain enough water to provide cooled air for a sufficiently long duration of time.
It is therefore an object of the instant invention to provide an evaporative cooling apparatus sufficiently self contained and compact enough for mounting atop a golf cart roof.
It is a further object of the instant invention to provide a compact self-contained evaporative cooling apparatus for other types of passenger or cargo compartments, partially or fully enclosed, as well.